your story molded from ashes
by lemonluden
Summary: Hotgomery/Bananun/Foxxay short drabble. Sometimes you're tied to & with someone's soul in all lives, there's connections death can't take away. (Billie/Lana/Cordelia PoV)


(1)

The first time, we almost miss each other. A sweet, deranged lady calls me in response to my ad on Craigslist. She's looking for a medium. I don't trust most of the lunatics who try to reach out, they're mostly stoned teenagers, crazy drunks, or the occasionally despair driven citizens. This woman sounds shattered, so I decide to meet, even if I am hesitant about how seriously she needs to drive a spirit into the next word.

Strikingly, she was honest. Over time, I become friends with Constance and learn to read the sadness underneath her calm posture. I feel she wants to give her son that last bit of peace, of protection that she was never able to give him when he was alive.

That house is dark. Haunted. We talk casually with Constance, the smoke of my cigarette twirling in the air, when I see her. A gorgeous blonde, rich curls, bloody red red lipstick. She turns around when she feels my eyes on her. I look back, I meet her eyes. She realizes I see her. Which might be a little shocking to her, considering she's aware of her state in this world as much as I am. She's a ghost.

But sometimes she forgets. The days pass and I see myself returning to Constance, spending more and more time around the ghosts. Nora, her name is Nora, swings between knowing she is a ghost and that she is not. At the side of her beautiful curls, there is the mark of a bullet entrance. Nora doesn't say much at first but as the days flutter away, I learn her story.

I'm easily drawn to her. To this woman who, spoiled in riches and vanity, became a tortured, confused and horrified soul. Who lost everything and in the face of it, tried to kill herself, but could never move on.

Violet comes and I get a sense, something lurking in the shadows, that a wicked thing will soon blossom from the darkness. It does. The next weeks are horrid. I can barely stand being in the presence of Tate, a spirit so violently torn in all directions. But it passes. It all passes.

And years after, my own hair frailed and withered, I keep returning to that house. Now abandoned, it is only Nora Montgomery who glides through walls and walks down the stairs, looking regal as ever.

"You have to let go, love," I tell her softly. The breath of my words escapes through my lips and I know in this moment that in this life, we are just missing each other, barely getting to know we existed, impossible, swayed by time in different directions.

I wonder if she feels it too, this flickering light around us, this connection that has us bound.

"I was waiting a whole life for love, thinking it would be in the body of a son, or a daughter, my own flesh." Her eyes are sad, defeated. And then quickly, a shine, "But maybe next time, I will meet you sooner."

With that she touches her lips to my cheek, and I can almost feel, I can almost imagine what a life together could have been.

"Breathe, breathe deeply, I tell her, don't be afraid," I tell her.

She fades slowly, her lips still burning on my skin. I know she has moved on and I try to find calm in the fact I helped her continue. In the fact I did meet her. But instead I cry, and cry, and cry.

(2)

The next time we meet, I barely recognize her. Entering the grounds of Briarcliff, I feel the darkness of it immediately. I have a life I'm satisfied with. I love Wendy. I love being a journalist. But there's just something in the eyes of this nun, something that calls out to me.

"What were you feeding out there I guess I'll have to ask Sister Jude… she scares you, doesn't she? She scares you to death. Let me look around and I won't tell Sr. Horrible about your night-time forays or your secret tunnel."

The spin of it is unfortunate. Nothing good happens in Briarcliff. Sister Jude manages to lock me inside and I know I will have to keep my wits and sanity if I want to survive. Somehow, I always do. I always overcome.

I don't expect it, any of it, not Bloodface or the screams in the asylum, not the whispers of Nazi doctors, of forgotten pasts.

I forget Wendy. A woman who cared for me but sold me to protect herself. I cannot survive, if I don't look out for myself. It's going to be on my own this time.

I learn the face of torture when I look deep into Sister Mary Eunice. Always these contradictions, once frail, damaged, she changes, twists and morphs. She refuses to speak to me, refuses to touch, denies my friendship. Then my life runs out of any control when Thredson takes me away. I am a shadow of a human.

Years pass, but I know it was her. I keep with my life, publish a book, get a house, a lovely woman to share it with.

But she doesn't leave my dreams. Sometimes, I wonder still if she felt it, too. And it comes back to me. The electro-shock Sister Jude ordered me to go through. Later, how Sister Eunice put Sister Jude through the same.

And I know it, I know we dance in parallel lines, bowing in front of each other, recognizing who we are, always will be, trying to reach out, but always, forever, distanced.

Monsignor throws Sister Mary Eunice from the third floor. Kills her. I know what I do to Monsignor and Briarcliff is far worse than that quick of a death.

Mirrored actions, as if we avenge the other. Closer, closer, but never close enough.

(3)

This time, I know it is her immediately. I don't see the stranger at my doorstep at the academy, but the second her hands touch mine, I feel it. That endless connection, woven through time, woven through history, woven through all of our lives. Who I am, who she is, it doesn't matter. It is her. It was meant to be.

But she doesn't recognize me. Maybe she will in due course. It repeats: I feel the darkness coming. I know it's not just the voodoo queens rising, it's what Misty tells me. Witch hunters. Something stirs from the world of the twisted.

I feel foolish to have ever even looked at Hank. But he helps me be certain it is her. We do it again. Misty looks for safety, and I open my doors. My ex-husband comes, and Misty comes to protect me. It's the same parallels, these same lines we draw around each other. And it's funny to see it in the smallest things. Madison tries to get under my skin and Misty gives her a fair physical warning not to mess with me. And later, when Misty leaves the tomb Madison put her in, all I can do is help that beautiful swamp witch explore her powers.

Again, she is torn in herself. Unaccepted, unloved, but loving. In this life, she comes closest to me. I can understand her better. We spend endless hours in the gardens and I can picture it, a life together. A life weaving magic, by each other's side, inseparable. All the trees bloom around her.

"We make a great team," she says one day. We do.

In this life, I hear her laugh. I memorize her smile.

And I know she knows it too. I know she knows me. At night she sneaks into my bedroom, lays down beside, tangles her fingers with mine.

"I won't let ya be alone no more," she says, Cajun accent rolling me thick into the loving arms of sweet dreams, "I'm here now. You got me."

But it doesn't last. It never lasts. I knew I shouldn't have agreed with Myrtle, I should have trusted her when she said she didn't want to do the Seven Wonders.

"Come to me," I cry, "Follow my voice," I shake as I hold her, "Please come to me."

I know I have lost her again. Now I can only wait for the next time. There is always a next time. But now, my tears simply run. Her body crumbles into ashes, slips through my fingers, fades.


End file.
